Writer stumbles home with the Kings

The Los Angeles Kings began the NHL season with two games in Europe, which meant a first time overseas for Rich Hammond, the traveling beat writer who the Kings employ. He blogged about the trip (with pictures) while it was going on, and now has a post up concluding the marathon road trip the team has been on since well before the season began.

The end, finally, as arrived. In less than three weeks, the Kings have gone from Kansas City to Denver to home (briefly) to Anaheim to Las Vegas to Hamburg to Stockholm to Berlin to Annapolis to Newark to Philadelphia. I counted, and over an 18-night span I slept in 11 different places, if you include the airplane and a friend’s couch.

The Kings open their home season on Tuesday night against the St. Louis Blues, giving the Staples Center fans their first look at newly acquired veterans Mike Richards and Simon Gagne (that's pronounced See-moan Gahn-yay.) They will be without their $7 million, 21-year-old defenseman Drew Doughty, who was hurt early in last night's win in Philadelphia. They're calling it a 7-to-10 day upper body injury. Here's the monster hit that took him down: